


chasing auroras

by Engineer104



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Mutual Pining, basically non-Azure Moon felannie end card, but the ending is Hopeful and that is the hill i will die on, i made myself sad writing this, implied canon character deaths, no beta we die less like glenn and more like dimitri, or at least a resolution?, post crimson flower route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21790051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: "After the war, Felix intended to abandon his noble title and make a living with his sword. On the day that he was to depart, however, he was waylaid by Annette..."Felix neither needs nor deserves a violent end; so Annette must convince him.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 9
Kudos: 59





	chasing auroras

**Author's Note:**

> i dunno what this is i just read a bit of an old WIP i'd actually totally forgotten about and then the spirit of Christmas Past or whatever possessed me to finish it despite the hour. hope you enjoy? or at least...find it gratifying in some way?
> 
> ~~although now that i think about it...where's my old concept of A Christmas Carol, Fire Emblem: Three Houses edition hiding...~~

Felix can barely remember a time when his father’s castle wasn’t so eerily silent. The stone walls seemed to absorb any sound, and even the minimal staff that served the family spoke quietly among themselves. Only the yard was ever noisy, full of the clashing of weapons and the shouts of soldiers training.

(Once, full of his own childish war cries and his brother’s goading.)

He’d since dismissed everyone that once served his family, because he no longer needs them - or because he can no longer stomach their reproachful, _hateful_ gazes.

Now the halls echo with his footsteps as he travels from his father’s - no, it’s _his_ now - study to the entryway to receive the visitor.

His breath catches in his throat at the sight of her standing at the bottom of the staircase with her back to him. Her gaze seems to be fixed on an old tapestry hanging on the wall, detailing a scene of some long-dead scion of House Fraldarius on a hunt for a…wild boar, ironically.

(The thought of _that_ twists his gut into knots.)

She doesn’t turn when he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

His heart hammers in his chest, faster with every step he takes towards her. “Annette,” he breathes.

Like he’s pulled her from one of her daydreams, she jumps and spins around with wide eyes. “Felix!” she greets him brightly, smiling in a way that makes something funny fill his stomach. She flings her arms around his neck, so forcefully she knocks the breath out of him.

Or maybe having her so close just makes it hard to breathe. But he carefully returns her embrace before he finds his voice and wonders, “What—what are you doing here, Annette?”

“I, um, I heard a rumor,” she explains carefully without letting him go. Her arms tighten around him, and for the first time in a long while he almost feels as if he belongs there.

“What…rumor?” Felix asks, though he suspects. Why else would she bother traveling so far north of where she lives? Just to see him…

Annette pulls away, but he’s the one who drops his arms first, suddenly unable to meet the blue eyes under that furrowed brow, undeserving of simply touching her with his bloodstained hands. “I heard that you relinquished your claim to your territory,” she says.

He grits his teeth; why does each word - each word that should liberate him rather than condemn him - fall with the force of a blow? “It’s no longer mine,” he tells her as steadily as he can. “It barely ever was.” He never wanted it, never had a say in the inheritance Glenn left behind. What right did he even have to it and its people when _he_ killed its last caretaker?

Annette sucks in a breath, her eyes wide when he dares to glance up at her face. “Then…it’s true?” she demands. One of her small hands closes around his wrist. “Felix, please tell me the rest isn’t.”

He turns his head away from her - so she can’t see anything on _his_ face? So he doesn’t have to see the hurt on hers? - and mutters, “That depends on what ‘the rest’ is.”

“You…gave up your position and title,” Annette says. “ _Why_?”

“I neither want nor deserve them,” he tells her, aware of how blunt, almost callous, he must sound. He tries to tug his hand from her grip, but she holds fast.

“And you were just going to _leave_?” she gasps. “Where were you even going to _go_?”

Felix shrugs but confesses, “It was always my intention to make a living with my sword. The war may be over, but the world’s not at peace.” His eyes narrow, though he still can’t look at her, not with how she looks at him. “And titles and _nobility_ are now meaningless thanks to the infinite wisdom of Her Imperial Majesty.”

“But…” Annette’s eyes, still wide with undisguised distress, pin him in place. She shakes her head, and her voice trembles as she argues, “But you _can_ _’t_. What did—why did we fight if you were just going to go and fight some more, Felix?”

“What else is there for me?” Felix snaps. At last he wrests his arm away from her to brandish about the castle’s wide entryway, showing her this inheritance he’s rejecting, that responsibility he doesn’t know what to do with. “I wasn’t raised for peace or rest, Annette, so what the hell else can I even do?”

The instant she flinches is the instant he wishes he could take back his words; he didn’t mean them any less, but hurting _her_ was the last thing he wanted.

Then she all but spits, “You’re _evil_ , Felix.”

It’s not the first time she’s insulted him so, but it’s the first time venom drips from her voice.

His eyes widen, beholding her in her obvious, scowling fury. It’s nothing he’s ever witnessed from her, not directed at him, and his heart skips a beat, half fearful she’ll weave a spell to knock him off his feet. “I—”

She cuts him off more harshly than he thought possible from her, perhaps as harshly as he deserves. “Haven’t you _ever_ thought of a future before?” she demands.

“I…maybe once,” Felix finds his voice, stands his ground, “but not anymore.” In a halting voice that would shame him before anyone else, he says, “What future is there for me when almost everyone I…cared for is dead?”

Some by his own hand. How the thought makes his chest tighten and his hand itch for his sword as if he can cut the memory away as easily as he ended those lives.

“What about the people who care for you?” Annette wonders. Her soft voice jerks him from the unpleasant depths of his mind. Pink colors her cheeks when he dares to glance up, but her eyes glint with a steely, stubborn determination. With her standing so close, he can feel her breath brush against his chin, and his heart stutters for a reason at once familiar and foreign when her hand cups his jaw.

He can also see the teary sheen in her eyes, and he hates himself for being the reason for them.

“Annette…” His breath catches in his throat.

“Stop being selfish,” she says, “you…you imbecile!”

Felix blinks. Did Annette just…call him an imbecile?

A chuckle bubbles up from his chest, and his eyes widen in shock at his own amusement. “I—”

“I mean it,” she grumbles with the ferocity of a wet kitten. “I care about you, and I want you to be happy, and I just…ugh, I don’t even care that you’re laughing at me now!”

“I’m…not laughing anymore.” No, any trace of laughter halted the instant the words _I care about you, and I want you to be happy_ slipped from her lips. Rather, a slight smile he can’t quite fight drifted onto his face, and he leaned down, wanting to breathe the same air as her, if just for an instant.

Annette’s gaze slides from his eyes down to linger on his mouth, and he can hear her breath hitching. His own pulse rushes with the desire to narrow the gap, to—well, it’s been a long time since he’s felt anything as profound and _hopeful_ or even as simple as the longing trying to tug him down.

But he resists her pull; he can no longer spare the naivete - how he would’ve laughed then to even call it that! - of their academy days. He steps back and turns away just enough he can’t feel the warmth of her body so close to him or the heat of her eyes intent on his face.

“It’s late,” he tells her, “so you can stay the night. I dismissed all the servants, but one of the rooms on the second floor should still have wood for the hearth and linens for the bed.”

(He can’t turn away so quickly he misses the abject hurt in how her gaze follows him.)

* * *

The castle feels emptier - and lonelier - than ever despite his unplanned guest. He paces the bedroom he resided in since he grew old enough he no longer wished to be attached to his mother’s hip, too much energy in his limbs - to much fresh regret forming a knot in his abdomen - to even attempt to sleep in his too large, too empty, too comfortable, and too cold bed. Instead he grabs his cloak from where it’s draped across a chair and ventures into the dark, frigid hall.

Felix finds her out in the courtyard after failing to hear an answer from the guest room door. The fresh snow on the ground glows in the light of the moon and stars, and overhead a vibrant green aurora flickers and folds across a velvety sky.

Her head tilts back, taking in the sight overhead, and as he draws level with her he notes her jaw hanging open in awe.

“You ought to be inside by a fire,” Felix chides her.

Annette jumps, her feet crunching through the snow as she spins to face him. “Felix,” she groans, “must you always sneak up on me?”

Felix stares down at his own feet, safely ensconced in warm boots and sitting in ankle-deep snow. “Were you so absorbed by the sky that you didn’t hear me?”

“It’s beautiful,” she retorts mutinously. “I’ve never seen anything like it south, even on dark nights.”

“They look even more brilliant on the longest nights in G—further north,” he tells her. His gut twists for the name that nearly fell from his lips, and he wishes he could take the thought back just as easily as he could halt the spoken word.

“That’s odd,” Annette muses with a sideways glance at him.

“What is?” Felix wonders warily, though her words are a welcome distraction.

“I never thought you of all people would appreciate something like this.” She nods towards the sky. “Then again, you did spy on me just to hear me sing…”

His face warms at the memory, his skin under his clothes crawling with embarrassment. Why should something so long ago still bother him so? “They’re pretty,” he says, shrugging, “but hardly exceptional when I saw them a few times every winter.” He watches her from the corner of his eye and thinks that maybe, for once, there’s something - someone - he’d rather see.

That thought he keeps to himself, holds it close to his chest just like he always did her songs and her smile. Not rare - at least, they didn’t used to be - but precious all the same in how, for just a moment, he could forget what lay behind him and before him and live in the moment with her voice in his ear and her presence at his side.

But he cannot keep the past and his memories at bay, no matter how much he tries, and he can’t leave with her upset at him thanks to his behavior that evening.

“I…can’t stay here, Annette,” he admits, disrupting the almost peaceful silence. “I grew up half here and half in Fhirdiad…” He inhales, and the lungful of cold, crisp air steadies him as he continues, “If I stayed here where—where _they_ once lived and walked, it may drive me mad.”

Maybe even as mad as the boar, he realizes with a shudder. How ironic, and how low he’s sunk.

Annette, to his relief, does not wonder who “they” are; perhaps she does not need to. But she turns towards him with her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

Felix sighs and shifts closer to her, holding up the edge of his cloak. She accepts the silent invitation and folds herself under his cloak, leaning into his side with a relieved sigh.

Even under his layers, his skin burns with the contact, that old want again rearing its head in his chest.

“You shouldn’t have to stay somewhere that pains you so,” Annette concedes, “but you can’t just run from it all either.”

“I’m not—”

“You _are_ ,” she insists, her elbow sharp against his ribs. “It’s just like—you’re better than that, and you deserve better, no matter what you think.”

His heart flutters almost sickeningly at her words, but his logic wins out. “And how would you know that?” he wonders.

“Because I want to think I deserve better too,” Annette confesses softly.

The cold air burns his lungs with the force of his silent gasp, but it’s nothing to the angry fire lighting up his veins. He pulls away to take her slim shoulders in his own bloody hands and demands, “What the hell are you talking about?”

She meets his gaze levelly. “Did you forget I fought a war against my own country too, Felix?” Her hand rests on his as her eyes drift away, an awful frown he longs to wipe away on her face. “Magic isn’t such a clean kill that I can’t wipe it from my conscience, and my father, he—” Her eyes slip shut as her lips press together, visibly trembling with something other than cold. “I’m as alone and guilty as you now, so why can’t we be alone and guilty together?”

Her question stuns Felix, freezes any retort he can possibly muster to his tongue. Instead his heart pounds an unsteady drumbeat, and when he finally summons the words and the wherewithal to reply, he stutters, “Annette, you…deserve more than I-I can possibly give you.”

Annette shakes her head with enough vehemence her hood falls from her head, revealing her wind-chapped face and her red hair that glows ethereally in the light of the aurora. For a heartbeat he beholds her beauty, her persistence, and his breath catches.

The illusion doesn’t shatter - it’s not an illusion, is it? - even when she slams her hand into his chest and bursts, “Dammit, Felix, are you listening to _anything_ I’m saying?”

He takes a step back, caught by surprise. “I’m—”

“It’s not about _deserving_ anything!” she rants. “You want a second chance, but it doesn’t have to be you, alone on a battlefield until you die where no one can mourn you!”

He reaches for her - why is he reaching for her? Why does hurting her hurt him so much? - and when his hands close around hers it shocks him when she doesn’t tug them away. “What do you want then?” he wonders.

“I’m returning to Garreg Mach,” Annette tells him immediately. “I’m applying for a professorship position there when the Academy reopens and I…I want you to come with me!”

“I…why?” Of all the things he expected her to say… “And what is there for me at _Garreg Mach_?”

“A weapons instructor position, surely,” she says, shrugging, as if she’s only now sparing it a thought. “Because…well, you’re right about one thing, and it’s that just because we, or well, the Emperor won the war doesn’t mean there will be peace, at least not yet.”

“But an instructor?” Felix’s jaw flaps uselessly with the protests swirling through his head. “ _Me_?”

“Why not you?” Annette retorts, her lower lip jutting out stubbornly. “You’d be able to test your strength every day, and you’d…I don’t know, it just seems perfect for you, at least to me!”

“Annette…”

“And maybe I’m being a bit of a hypocrite now since I called you selfish earlier when asking you to go with me somewhere you might not want to go is just as selfish”—she barely pauses her tirade to breathe—”but Felix, I can’t…just…” She trails off, sniffing, and falls forward.

Her forehead presses against his chest, right over his pounding heart. Her scent, something cleaner than the fresh snow, crisper than the winter air, fills his nose. Her arms hang loosely at her sides, and he longs to wrap his own around her but can’t bring himself to indulge.

Annette trembles against him. “Please, Felix…” she mumbles, her voice muffled and brimming with emotion. “Don’t you leave me behind too.”

At last he embraces her, holds her tightly against him while she shakes and while a stubborn lump sticks in his throat. He buries his face in her cold hair and focuses on breathing steadily, because any words he might bring himself to say without fear of a sob bursting from him instead would be ineffectual.

Everything…except:

“I won’t, Annette,” he promises, whispering it into her hair. “I won’t.”

For her, he can do that much.

**Author's Note:**

> not gonna lie, i'm lowkey disappointed in myself that they didn't even kiss. such comments (but please hold your complaints) can be directed below, particularly if you just want to scream about Felix and Annette and how ahem ranged Felix's endings are
> 
> ...now time to work on my Secret Santa fic (Annette voice: _it'll be flUuUuffy_ )


End file.
